Close on the heels of Britannia Industries launching its super premium chocolate chip cookie Good Day Chunkies exclusively on Amazon, in an experimental idea never tried before by Parle, the company is planning to take the e-commerce option with an existing or a new brand. Parle is looking to develop special packages which can be sold exclusively online. Presently Parle has got a market share of 38 per cent in the Rs.24,000 crore domestic biscuit market. The company which manufactures brands like Hide & Seek, Milano etc. recently launched a range of “healthy biscuits” under ‘Simply Good’ brand name.
Speaking about this new development Pravin Kulkarni, general manager, Parle Products was quoted as saying, “We are looking at tie-ups with the e-commerce players and hopefully we will be able to come up with something in a couple of months.” He added that “E-commerce is a very essential part of the FMCG business these days. But in FMCG, the product value is very small and the cost of courier is very high in online business.”
Recently FMCG companies have shown this trend of selling their products through online. PepsiCo was recently in news and it was report that they are planning to sell imported premium snacks and fruit juices through e-commerce portals in India. Last year Coc-Cola launched its low-sugar Coke Zero cola in India exclusively on Amazon. A joint report released by Google and Bain & Co. reported that the online shopper base in India looks bullish and it is projected that the product sales through online channel would grow 50 times from the current level by 2020.
Though FMCG companies are interestingly adding the e-commerce option to their existing distribution model there are apprehensions as it is considered an expensive option. Since the companies have to bear high freight costs and cannot pass on the extra cost to the consumers the E-Commerce route is still considered as a very challenging proposition
